


Which Witch

by GuenVanHelsing, setmeatopthepyre



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Halloween, Some Swearing, Trick or Treating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-13 21:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16479794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuenVanHelsing/pseuds/GuenVanHelsing, https://archiveofourown.org/users/setmeatopthepyre/pseuds/setmeatopthepyre
Summary: It's Halloween, the van just broke down, and the Rowdy 3 have a shitload of candy. It's time for some impromptu trick-or-treating.





	Which Witch

The van rumbled contentedly as it sped down the country road, bass thumping through the speakers. Pumpkin patches flew by, the scarecrows that guarded them dancing in the tail end of an October storm. Amanda pulled her sleeve up over her hand and used it to clear some of the condensation on the window, hoping to get a better look at the decorations that were set up by each mailbox they drove past, and was promptly pushed to the side by Vogel, who draped himself over her to get a look outside as well. 

“A witch!” he said, voice only slightly muffled by the lollipop in his mouth and the glass his face was pressed against. Amanda poked his ribs until he moved aside so she could look. 

“There’s a  _ ton _ of witches,” she said, and Martin slowed the van so that the rest of the Rowdies had a chance to clamber over seats until they got a look at them. It seemed like whoever owned the pumpkin patch they were passing now had decided to dress up their many,  _ many _ scarecrows as witches. 

It was only slightly creepy.

“Think that one’s real,” Martin jabbed one ringed finger at the rapidly darkening fields ahead of them, and Amanda shuddered.

“Which one’s real?” She shifted in her seat so that she could lean forward and wipe away more of the condensation. 

“Yeah,” said Gripps. “Which witch?”

Cross cackled beside him. “Which witch is which?”

Amanda’s laugh was cut short by a yelp when Martin hit the breaks. “Hey, man, what the  _ fuck? _ ” she yelled after him as he threw open his door and jumped out of the driver’s seat. “ _ Martin!” _

Martin’s face reappeared at the door to grin at her. “Let’s see which witch bewitched the witches, Drummer girl.”

“Witch hunt!” Cross declared, clambering over the seats to exit the van through the driver’s side door in lieu of waiting patiently for Gripps to open the door in the back. Amanda grabbed a lime-green lollipop from their impressive candy collection and followed the others outside.

They left the van sitting in the middle of the road -- which was deserted, so Amanda saw no harm in it. Surely whatever force of the universe kept them safe while they had beer fights in a moving vehicle could keep the van safe now.

Then again, she thought, if there was ever a time for the universe to go screwy -- or, who was she kidding,  _ screwier _ \-- dusk on Halloween was definitely it. Especially with the fog rolling in like it was. She glanced back at the still-growling van, wondering if it wasn’t a better idea to keep driving instead of venturing into what was most likely a haunted pumpkin patch. 

“Witch! Witch! We’ve got a witchakookoo, we ain’t scared of you!” Vogel chanted in the distance, and Amanda shook her head to get rid of the creeping fear. She had her Beast and her boys. She’d be fine. 

 

\--

 

Ultimately, they found no actual witches in their so-called witch hunt. What they did find was three witch hats, which had been subsequently bestowed upon Cross, Beast and Amanda -- Amanda because it was hers by right as their resident witchakookoo, and Cross and Beast because they had been the winners of a spirited and particularly aggressive game of rock-paper-scissors.

Well, maybe they hadn’t exactly  _ found _ the hats, but the important part was that they’d left the pumpkin patch slightly less spooky than they’d found it, and the whole endeavor had them all in high spirits as they continued their drive. 

A drive that lasted exactly twelve and a half minutes. The van had taken them through the next town, down a residential street, and then promptly stopped after Martin swerved to avoid a black cat crossing the road. 

Then it refused to start.

“Well,” Martin said, hands smoothing across the steering wheel. “This is interestin’.”

“Why aren’t we driving?” Amanda asked, though she very well knew the answer. Sometimes the van just stopped, and then something happened. Or it didn’t, because sometimes nothing was also something, and apparently that was important too. 

Martin tried the key one more time, but nothing happened. The music happily continued to thump, but the van didn’t budge. “Guess we’re here to stay, boys.” 

Amanda hopped down out of the van, boots hitting the still-wet asphalt with a thud. They were pulled over at the very end of a row of houses, all of which were decorated. Then she noticed the small silhouettes milling about on the sidewalk on either side of the road.

Children.

Not just children.

_ Trick-or-treaters _ . 

She grinned, then joined the others by the side of the van, wrapping an arm each around Beast and Gripps. “Guys? I think I know why we found all that candy last week.”

 

\--   
  


The bullies they’d chased off with hollers and whistles and swinging fists and crowbars the week before had left them with enough candy to put a small army into a sugar coma, and Martin had already crammed enough lollipops into the van’s glove compartment to keep him from running out for the next two  _ months, _ even at the rate he was going through them. 

The candy situation needed to change, especially since Amanda hd unraveled her blanket and gotten a faceful of Three Musketeers bars just the night before. A neighborhood full of trick-or-treating children was the perfect way to spread some Halloween cheer and clear out the van enough so she wouldn’t find packets of gummy worms in her boots every morning. 

Of course, they couldn’t  _ just  _ hand out candy on Halloween. A pack of Rowdies infested with holiday spirit needed  _ costumes _ \-- although Amanda truly hoped none of them got actually possessed before the night was out. Three witches’ hats between the six of them just wasn’t enough.

“Whoooo, it’s a spook zone!” called Cross, and Amanda looked up, seeing the tall Rowdy grinning wildly from his perch on the roof of the van. The object of his amusement was Vogel, who had taken the single white sheet they had and cut two holes in it, successfully turning himself into the most classic ghost ever. 

Although, at second glance, it looked like  _ Gripps _ had cut the holes, since he had a pair of elegant embroidery scissors in hand, and was already cutting holes into a darker swathe of fabric.

“Rainbow, hands up!” he called, holey creation in hand and scissors glinting brightly, and Beast dashed for him with a yell. When she rose, triumphant, from the tackle hug that had knocked a giggling Gripps to the ground, she was wearing the black fabric as a sort of robe, the cut sections adding texture that almost looked like a raggedy bird. A bright, raggedy witch-bird, what with her rainbow hair and her black witch’s hat, the little flashes of bright orange from her jacket peeking out through the holes of her robe as she moved. 

 

“I like your costume!” 

Amanda jumped, startled by a sudden appearance at her side, and the Rowdies’ heads all swiveled toward her in unison. “Thanks!” said Vogel, and Amanda laughed when she saw a miniature ghost, a near perfect copy of Vogel, looking up at him. “You’re spooky!” 

“Here,” said Martin, stepping from behind the van, and Amanda smothered a laugh when she saw he was wearing Cross’s hat, lopsided and crooked as his grin. He dumped a handful of candy into the tiny ghost’s bag, raising his eyebrows when the kid stared at him. Amanda was pretty sure she saw a full-sized Mars bar disappear into the bag, and she grinned as the kid seemed to notice too, the strange man in the witch hat already forgotten as the little ghost bounced happily back to the street, a  _ thank you _ wafting over one ghostly shoulder. 

“C’mere,” said Amanda, as Cross called to Gripps and began tossing things down from the roof. Martin glanced up at them, though Amanda couldn’t be sure if he was gauging the danger of objects being thrown or if he was just amused. Then he turned his gaze to her. “Bend down, you’re too tall,” she said, and he smiled a little wider at that, ducking down so she could adjust the hat a little straighter. Then Vogel was shrieking from getting bonked on the head by whatever it was that Cross had thrown, and Martin leapt into the fray as Cross slid down to the ground and was promptly tackled by Beast. 

 

“Are you, like, handing out candy?” 

This time when Amanda turned, she had a smile ready, and perhaps it was a bit more of a grin, as the child in jodhpurs, spurs, and a cowboy hat took a hasty step back. “Abso _ lutely,” _ said Amanda, and whistled. The tangle of tussling Rowdies unraveled, and Gripps was the first to hurry over, Cross on his heels and Martin and Vogel following at a slower, stumbling pace, as Martin tried valiantly to right Vogel’s sheet and Vogel tried to walk at the same time, unable to see with the eye-holes stuck on his ear. Beast disappeared into the van, and something thumped, loudly that made Martin’s face twist as he looked from Amanda to the van and back again, the blonde Rowdy finally abandoning a fully-righted Vogel to investigate Beast’s fate. 

“Whoa,” breathed the miniature cowboy, as Gripps emptied his pockets into the kid’s bright orange plastic pumpkin that already held a good layer of candy. “Are you for real?” 

“Trust me, you’re doing us a favor,” said Amanda. “Happy halloween, buddy.” 

“Thanks!” said the cowboy, and darted off, only to be quickly replaced by a little black cat and a slightly larger dalmation with a red firefighter’s hat, both looking a little suspicious but happy enough to accept handfuls of candy from an enthusiastic Vogel. Then it was a steady stream of children, and the occasional frazzled parent, all of whom found nothing too alarming about a wild bunch of barely-costumed punks handing out massive amounts of candy. 

When she went to replenish her hoard of KitKats, Amanda wondered briefly if the universe was perhaps playing a trick on her and restocking their stash, because there seemed to be just as much candy as when they’d started. 

“We outta those star candies yet?” said Martin, and Amanda tilted her head back to look at him from under the wide brim of her hat. He’d lost his hat sometime since she’d entered the van. His hair was ruffled and sticking up in wild directions, and she didn’t know how he wasn’t cold with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows and free of his grey jacket.  _ She _ was getting cold, with the cool breeze and the encroaching evening, and she was wearing a long-sleeved shirt she’d snitched from Vogel under her jacket. 

“There’s some left,” said Amanda, and tossed him the last bag of Starbursts, their removal revealing the rest of the KitKats, and she snatched up a bag before hopping out, grinning when Martin unwrapped a Starburst for himself. “You know your tongue is blue, right?” He stuck it out at her, and she laughed, swiping the second Starburst from him and following him out.

Gripps had acquired a pair of sparkly fairy wings sometime during the few minutes she had stepped out of sight, and was waving goodbye to a little girl with a matching pair and a bewildered mother. He grinned at her, and Amanda smiled, realizing that the wings matched his glittery green nail polish perfectly. 

She looked down at her own chipped black paint, and nudged him. “Hook me up with some green later?” She glanced at Martin. “Him, too?” Martin raised an eyebrow at her, inspected his nails, and shrugged -- Amanda turned her beamed grin at Gripps. “That’s a yes?” 

“Whoa, that’s cool, what  _ is _ that?” piped a young, very excited voice to the side of the van, and Amanda’s inner alarm for trouble shrieked. 

“That’s a  _ machete _ ,” said Cross, and Amanda spun to find him crouched down at eye-level with the kid, a broad smile on his face.

“Maybe not the  _ best _ idea,” she said brightly, and rushed over to carefully pry a very real -- albeit a little rusty -- machete out of the hands of the cowboy that couldn’t have been older than eight. 

“He says it’s  _ cool, _ Drummer!” protested Cross, though he made no attempt to get the machete back, and Amanda kept her smile fixed in place as she tucked the machete behind her back.

“I’ll trade you this instead,” she said, and offered the cowboy the entire unopened bag of KitKats. 

The kid’s eyes widened.  _ “Deal!” _ he said, and flipped off his hat with more flare than Amanda thought was really fair for a kid that young to have. Cross accepted it with a flourish and balanced it carefully on his head -- it was a little small, but the wide grin of both of them made up for it. 

“It’s a good look on you,” said Amanda, and Cross beamed, tilting the hat at a rakish angle and sauntering over to see what had Beast and Vogel so interested. She looked at the machete in her hand, and sighed, hoping no other sharp objects had been offered to children. Sure, sugar was the devil and all that, but at least it wasn’t  _ actual weaponry. _

 

\--

 

“Wasn’t she in a field earlier?” said Martin, and Amanda turned from the latest group of kids, aware of the sudden seriousness in his tone. The noise from the other Rowdies quieted for a moment as they gathered closer. 

“Trick or treat!” said a small scarecrow cheerfully, holding up a pumpkin-shaped bucket. Beast sank into a crouch, lifting her hands to her hat and narrowing her eyes at the kid. Vogel clapped his hands to his hat as well, eyeing her suspiciously. 

“No tricks here,” said Gripps, and poured a mix of Mars bars, Dots, and Milky Ways into the pumpkin, emptying the bag with a flourish and a grin as the scarecrow’s jaw dropped, skinny little arms wrapping around the very full bucket to keep from dropping it. 

“Thanks a million!” said the scarecrow, a little breathlessly, and scurried back to her waiting parent, happily showing off her stash, and Amanda looked around. There were far less kids than when the van had stopped, and most of them seemed on their way home, no longer ringing doorbells as they made their ways down the street. 

“Didn’ wanner hat back,” Beast said when the scarecrow was out of earshot, giving the rim of her hat a twirl so that the whole thing spun around in a circle. 

“Well,” said Martin. “Guess now it’s a trade.”

“Candy for a hat,” Cross added, and grinned as he tapped his own hat. “A good deal.”

“Not bad at all,” Amanda agreed. A small assortment of costumes was definitely more manageable than the very nearly literal mountain of candy they’d been dealing with before. 

With no one else heading their way, she climbed back into the van to assess the damage. 

Much better.

_ Much _ better. 

They still had enough lollipops to keep them all happy for a long while to come, but she could actually  _ see  _ the pile of blankets and bedding now instead of having to dig through an assortment of plastic packaging first. 

“Need a hand? I’ve got two!” Vogel said, clambering in behind her, and got to work clearing space and spreading out sleeping bags with her. She could hear the others talk to one or two more groups before they finally climbed into the van as well.

\--

 

The evening had been fun, but Amanda was glad to be in their trusty van again and  _ not _ surrounded by children. They were amusing, sure. Cute, even. 

But their constant presence and the cold night air had been fucking  _ tiring _ , and Amanda was glad to be in the warmth and quiet of the van, even with the soft snores of the others and Vogel’s inexplicable, dissonant humming filling the small space. She wiggled deeper into her sleeping bag and nudged Gripps’ arm until he moved it to make space for her. As she drifted back to sleep, she wondered for the briefest of moments if the van would start again in the morning. She wasn’t worried, though.

It always did.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the DGHDA SpookFest 2018, together with the indomitable [@intricatecakes](http://intricatecakes.tumblr.com).


End file.
